Ruchama’s gone in search of higher ground
to find our way through fields wrapped around
folds of land, all terraced, trimmed and stacked
mostly by hand, strong legs and back.

I wait, convinced she’s wrong: our way is down
along the valley, between nut-brown paddies:
this path, made slick by oxen hitched to ploughs
followed to work each day by hundreds of feet.

A populated land, dense with purpose;
I must seem even stranger stopped mid-path.
A woman appears, across her shoulders a pole
bent between baskets piled with greens.

Mud still clumps black at their roots.  She laughs—
brown teeth, missing teeth—in what seems
surprise, her eyes discreet, even kind, 
as she passes, turning her load slightly sideways.

Intruder, I wait, unable to go. She seems 
a mute advocate for movement—choose!
Any path, any error.   As she passes,
she leaves scents of onion, disturbed earth.